Key Opportunities and Challenges for Positive Changes in Youth Ministries (article) by Alvin C. Romer on AuthorsDen

An introspective look into the pros and cons relative to Youth Ministries in churches.

Suffice it to say, youth in growing numbers across the nation in all of our churches are in a dilemma. If they’re not leaving the church they are definitely not in tune to keeping their attention span alert and invigorated to stick and stay. This essay dwells on essential opportunities that should be initiated for greater appeal with emphasis on keeping our children motivated and on point; it also delves in addressing the many challenges where change of habit concerning spirituality and other inspired choices for a positive spin on studying the Bible, participating in youth church and allowing them to become the leaders of tomorrow. A tough task in the making? You betcha! But all is not lost if certain things are dealt with to insure a modicum of introducing new ideas, embracing ideals that inspire, and of course, making sure salvation is not lost among the essentials to change mindsets. After all, it’s still our job as responsible adults to train them up and show them the way to go. Of course, an issue to deal with is how we’re capitalizing on where students are in their mindsets on a whole and how they can become involved without boredom surfacing. Several children and young adults have always told me that they really want to have an impact on their world and live a life of significance, but doing it without rancor and reprimand. They’re concerned because they feel parents and grown folk always use parallel and ‘back in the day’ analogies...and that adults don’t respect their opinions. This gave me the wherewithal to think that they are looking for leaders that they can identify with in helping them find answers that they can’t always get from their peers. They are seeing that our world is not functioning in the way they would hope it would function, and because of that, I see youth not being discouraged but rather encouraged about how they can make a difference.

For sure, we KNOW that the village is not the same, and it’s a new generation with real problems. What can be done to introduce and emphasize positives in anything changed for greater participatory initiatives? How many of them can we condition them to evangelize and allow peer-to-peer synergy to bubble to the surface? Challenges abound when it comes to our youth, but I’m going to wrap both of those questions up into one concept—that of making disciples. God wants us adults to be accountable. We should be judged by how many disciples we made, how many people are still in the kingdom five or 10 years from now and beyond. Moreover, helping kids to develop spirituality is one element that makes all the difference in the world to me. It continues to be a struggle for churches to involve students into the full life of the church without losing them to the streets, and/or to other more ‘so-called’ dynamic churches in their way of thinking. You have kids who have pretty extensive responsibilities with things they do at school, whether it be their involvement in team sports, clubs or other leadership things they do. Then when it gets to the church, it’s kind of like, “You’re really not quite ready to do something significant here because you’re not involving me” idea. So the tendency for most churches who don’t have regular youth services, or a replica of the main church under their own participation is to keep all the youth of the church locked up in the teen room or have them unwillingly attending the big church uninterested, uninspired and undisciplined.

In closing, but certainly not least, there are three main things that I feel would make a difference in our youth that I’d like to see happen in their lives. I honestly think they need to know God in personal ways; that they need to move to an ownership of their faith, and they need opportunities to make their faith known. These three things are sort of the pillars of our strategy for the spiritual development of students as they determine destined value for those positive changes that challenges them!

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